I vividly recall the day skydiving became the inaugural entry on my bucket list. I remember sitting on a chair, drawing a plane with a stick figure leaping from it – that stick figure was me. The vision remained unfulfilled for years, until a friend's plan to skydive rekindled my long-forgotten dream.
That dream became a reality, and the 60 seconds of free fall were some of the most blissful moments of my life. Watching the video later, I could see the joy in my eyes, but that's only a fraction of what my brain experienced. My levels of dopamine and endorphins must have been over the moon.
Into Lucid Dreaming
In parallel to ticking off one of the top items on my bucket list, I was also doing dream yoga, the practice of enhancing awareness and consciousness through lucid dreaming. One night, I set an intention to become conscious in my dream and to fly. That night, I performed a reality check to see if I could detach from my body, and I was successful, realizing I was dreaming. Then, I began flying, and my face was lit up with a huge smile. Throughout the entire dream, I felt an immense rush of joy and excitement, comparable only to those 60 seconds of skydiving, but it lasted what felt like 10-15 minutes to me.
Scientifically, lucid dreaming can stimulate similar neural pathways as real-life experiences. When we visualize an activity in a dream, our brain generates comparable emotional responses. This means that during a lucid dream, the brain can release dopamine, endorphins, and even adrenaline, similar to when we are awake and engaging in exhilarating activities.
Skydiving vs. Lucid Dreaming
I've thought a lot about earning a skydiving license. The main reason I haven't done it yet is the environmental impact of having to take a plane every time I want to jump. As a kitesurfer, I appreciate activities powered by natural elements like wind, without relying on fossil fuels. This realization, coupled with a friend’s story about her father's skydiving addiction and subsequent accidents, added a layer of apprehension. Skydiving, while exhilarating, carries a risk of accidents, though statistically, they are rare. The United States Parachute Association reported that in 2020, there were 0.39 fatalities per 100,000 jumps.
Despite my recent apprehension, I'd recommend everyone to try both. Even more, I’d also say that it’s likely that skydiving could enhance one’s lucidity based on my own experience.
Personally, I'm more captivated by the idea of becoming an expert in dream yoga and lucid dreaming than by becoming a certified skydiver, for numerous reasons:
Zero-sum: Although, in my experience, skydiving likely enhances lucidity, both activities, when done at a professional level, require a significant time commitment.
Environmental impact: I try to lower my environmental impact as much as I can. For example, I don’t own a car, and I bike to my kitesurfing spot. Not needing a plane to practice dream yoga is a plus : ).
Positive emotions: The joy experienced in lucid dreams is unique and deeply satisfying.
Focus: Dream yoga enhances focus and stabilizes my mind, positively impacting my daily life.
Connection to Meditation: Dream yoga is a testament to my progress in meditation. The better I get at meditation, the better I get at lucid dreaming and vice versa.
Health: Dream yoga encourages me to sleep more, one of the healthiest activities one can do.
Safety: It's risk-free 🤙🏽
Given those variables, I'll continue practicing dream yoga, which involves becoming lucid during my dreams and feeling fulfilled even if I never skydive again. That said, I don't rule out doing it if the opportunity presents itself.
More research is needed to fully understand the brain's mechanisms during skydiving and lucid dreaming, and it'd be really exciting to see more data that helps us understand what happens in our bodies during these activities.
I share those apprehensions about doing more skydiving for the reasons you describe (and a young woman I trained with died in a chute failure weeks later). But it’s such a wonderful rush to skydive and almost like the descriptions others have given me of ayahuasca experiences, though surely it must be very different. Thanks for a lovely essay and big hugs.